My Groupon Life

My Groupon Life

By Kelsey Judd, Intern

When I found out my that roommate went scuba diving on a date last weekend I was impressed. Where in NYC did she scuba dive and who is this Mr. Wonderful-I-Take-Girls-On-Creative-Dates guy? After a few moments of amazement, I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

This past year I’ve noticed an increasing amount of my friends using Groupon. “We’re going bowling this weekend…you got the bowling Groupon last week, right?” Launched in 2008, Groupon offers daily deals on local services. Opportunities are delivered to your email, smart phone, Facebook, or Twitter and then Groupon relies on people to pass these on to their friends by broadcasting them via social networks. Is this a business model that will define my technology savvy generation?

It seems that social media is pushing the start up company to the top. (LivingSocial, a similar website, is currently the No. 2 player.) One of the many ways for a company to communicate with its customers who use social media is by email, Groupon is doing just that. They are also enjoying the benefits of the powerful catalyst: word of mouth. As mentioned earlier with the bowling, people are starting to talk about Groupon’s daily deals. Going from $33 to $760 million in revenues this past year, it is evident they are extremely successful at using local social media as a marketing and promotional tool. They also reportedly turned down a $6 billon takeover offer from none other than Google.

It will be interesting to see if clone companies can outsmart Groupon. For now, I will continue to enjoy deals offering 50-90 percent off services and products in NYC. Today I could rent a Porsche for $59!